greydos

Fair enough lads. I'll be interested to see the Opta stats on the amount of shots Taylor blocked. I counted 3 in the second half where he sprinted out to a shot and blocked it from a corner. And fair play not many people will have seen football played with that fluidity of passing and movement at high speed so that's a slightly unfair comment i feel. I've just txt my mate that i feel this year we're going to improve on last year, possibly significantly (signings depending) whereas Arsenal will achieve about the same as last year in terms of position in league and cup attempts. So, in a perverse way, i'll likely be happier than arsenal fans at the end of the season.

Kaka in future by all means debate with me, that's great and what this forum's for. I'm glad you've been entertained like i have watching the team we love for the last 2 hours. But please in future do not feel you have to question my sanity or throw other insults at me. I respect you and would like the same mate. cheers

Taylor was better than Colo by some distance for me. STrong in the air, positionally good and saved what should have been a goal when Colo stepped up to challenge Vela, got turned and it ended up with Walcott 8 yards out hitting it wide at the near post because Taylor's positioning covered half the goal the other side of Shay. Guthrie's passing is immense, just wish he had players with better end product to give it to. I think you must have lost your mind. Coloccini was playing at centre back by himself today. Of course Coloccini stepped up to challenge Vela, he was stepping up to challenge their attackers all game! And he was winning a lot of tackles. That is what you are supposed to do. If it was left to Taylor he would keep backing off till he ended up in the goal with the ball. That is not how to defend. This is why he seems to be invisible half the time. It is because he never steps up to tackle anyone or try to win the ball or apply pressure. He keeps backing off again and again and so ends up in awful positions where he is way too deep in the box. It's terrible defending by a bad defender. I can't believe you've just watched that game and can come out saying Taylor played better. It's quite startling.It's amazing to me. Have to agree. Thought Taylor was subpar. There was a run of play where Adebayor had the ball on the right wing and Taylor just kept backing off and backing off. Jonas came in and actually pressured him for the ball and forced him to make a pass under pressure. And he's still holding his f***ing arms out. I have to disagree my friend. If a striker drops off so deep into his own midfield that he's got midfielders ahead of him, you don't as a CB chase him that far up the pitch. Colo's challenge on Vela was near the half way line at a time when the rest of our defence were closer to the 18 yard box. If this was 2 years ago we'd have been slating Boumsong for chasing strikers wherever they go on the pitch to try and win the ball. But as it's flavour of the month Colo he's praised for trying to win the ball (Even though he never, and from the 39th minute onwards he lost more of those he stepped out for than he won). It pains some people on here to praise the unfashionable players, but Taylor won a LOT in the air today, and got many blocks in. HE stepped out of the line cleverly to deflect many arsenal shots for corners in the second half (Caused by an absent CM pairing not tracking their men). I'm happy to stick my neck on the line: Taylor played better than Colo and Beye. I'll watch the full 90 mins again twice this week and update my opinion if i think it should change. oh, on the adebayor thing, if he'd gone in at him there was a good chance adebayor would have been 2v1 against Bassong as last man as Colo was up and out of the defence again. With taylor's lack of pace against Ade i thought it was a good ploy to back off and actually he did well although a free kick was wrongly given against him. If it was a Ferdinand or Toure with more pace against Adebayor fair enough go in against him. What Taylor could hav done better mind was back off but only show him the touchline and force him down there. Taylor backed off towards goal however (tactic many CBs are taught). The lad does have a bright future tho.

It's true, just as our defence will (generally) benefit from having a Colo in it. Someone with presence, quality and footballing authority. We need a Colo in our centre midfield. Just a guaranteed very solid (potentially) world class player. But we have Butt and Guthrie. The former should only play in a midfield 3. The latter should be the equivalent of Freddie Flintoff bowling: first change.

Was late when they did they second and third. Same as Beye. Or did you meant that he was our man of misery? I don't understand what you're saying here? The second goal was because Guthrie didn't track back with his man causing Taylor to have to come across off his man and Beye couldn't pick up Taylor's man quick enough. When you're having to make a decision on whether to cover the midfield runner or your attacker whilst sprinting backwards within 2 or 3 seconds it's difficult to make a decision. As far as i'm concerned he made the right one, you step over and take the free man and hope your full back, with a better view of the situation than you (more of a panorama as he's behind the play) anticipates quickly and takes your man. Beye never. Will have another view of the third goal and post in response to that a bit later.

He played last year after the same incident towards the end of the season and wasn't roundly booed. Arsenal fans are idiots. Most of the cockney crowd have probably had as many fights as Barton if not more.

Taylor was better than Colo by some distance for me. STrong in the air, positionally good and saved what should have been a goal when Colo stepped up to challenge Vela, got turned and it ended up with Walcott 8 yards out hitting it wide at the near post because Taylor's positioning covered half the goal the other side of Shay. Guthrie's passing is immense, just wish he had players with better end product to give it to.

Would like to echo the sentiment in the opening post. Arsenal are good enough to bury even quality teams such as the milans of this world by good scores. I do however disagree with the praise of Colo's performance tonight. Too many times he stepped out of the line to try and win the ball and didn't and it cost us on a few occasions. Taylor, Guthrie or Gutierrez my man of the match. Probably Taylor, good game when others around him lost their heads. In Rudyard Kipling's eyes, he's now a man.

I didn't mean that we contact from 1 to 6 so I might have been unclear, we might contact them within a few hours of each other. Keegan said he handed over a list of names and Wise did the same so I'm making an assumption that these lists were put together to form a shopping list. Once the list was finalised then we'll have started work on bringing in the players, I doubt we went through the list and waited for a refusal before even starting on the next unless the quality of our targets was massively different. I take your point. I'm just frustrated the signings aren't in. I'd have wanted most of the first team ones in for preseason, with squad fillers to come in whenever. It's not an ideal world though. I've kept my peace all summer, but i've reserved the right to have an eternal b**** come tuesday if things aren't rosy in the garden

You are right. The two clubs involved, the players and agents should all just agree on everything with a couple of calls. I still think we should have asked for £25m for Milner then phoned Villa to agree on it within 40 mins tops. I said ENQUIRE, yes, ENQUIRE!! Not wrap up the deal!! not agree terms, just ENQUIRE!! F****** read my post properly then respond I attempted to read your post but I'm still trying to work out what it is you are complaining about. I'll try and make it a bit clearer. Mick says that it takes months to get a deal done. And we're this late in the window without signing so many players because we work down a list. And as we work down the list it takes weeks and weeks until we're on our 6th choice. All i'm saying is, to avoid this diabolical situation (if true, which it probably isn't), couldn't the club just make a bunch of calls to the various players' clubs and ask "would you be interested in doing a deal on X...oh really? at what price?? Ooh we'll have a think give us two weeks". This way we know at the beginning of the window who we might and might not get. As opposed to working on target 1 solely for 2 weeks. Then finding that's screwed and moving to target 2 for 3 weeks. Then finding that's screwed and moving to target 3 and so on till you're 3 days from the end of the window with only a couple of players in. I'm not saying Mick's interpretation of transfers is right (KK in his bbc interview said it's easy to get players in at times). I'm just saying that if Mick was right, that would be a ridiculous situation easily cured by a few phone calls.

You are right. The two clubs involved, the players and agents should all just agree on everything with a couple of calls. I still think we should have asked for £25m for Milner then phoned Villa to agree on it within 40 mins tops. I said ENQUIRE, yes, ENQUIRE!! Not wrap up the deal!! not agree terms, just ENQUIRE!! F****** read my post properly then respond

The way some people on here talk about transfer targets seems a little naive. Stuff like 'we enquire with our first choice, then move down a list and it can take months and months'. Surely finding out if a player will come takes 1 phone call to a club? How hard can it be to make 6 phone calls in a day, to your top 6 targets? With a team of 3 men doing transfers i'm sure they could muster 30 phone calls in a week, enough to enquire about 6 targets for 5 positions. Poor excuse if you ask me

I love JB.

Think about it. i have been, care to tell me? Of course he can't tell you because he's not a member of the St James Park hierarchy just like any of us. However, like all the 'you can't criticise the toon or you're a doomonger please don't say bad things or the press will write nasty pieces about us and i just can't take it i might have to call you names and spit my dummy aaaaargh!' crew he's entitled to say that the toon hierarchy have handled this transfer window WELL even though we're not allowed to say the opposite view. Truth be told all judgements will be made on tuesday. However, there's nothing that should stop a positive or negative view one way or the other before the end of the window.

What a pathetic thread.

fee? they will have no doubt got a good price for him, unbeliveable how man utd always managed to sell there junk for decent prices, Smith,Richardson etc 5-6m each, did they not get about 7 for rossi!?? Please dont include Rossi with the other two, I know he was crap for you but hes a wonderful player and I've still no idea why we couldnt convince him to stay. As for Saha, hes honestly one of the best strikers in Europe with the surname "Saha" when he's fully fit. Of course thats once every 3 years, but even so. FYP

Petrov and Wright-Phillips down the wings is frightening for any fullback. Pace...In...Abundance

Milner's crap but we need bodies. What an annoying time of the transfer window to hand in a request! We should keep him for the year and sell next summer. We need to replace him before he goes

NE5 will have enough material to write a book - Check FYP

No

See you next tuesday

I personally was heart set on getting Deschamps in. A young, inspiring attacking manager that had potential to go very far with a club given backing, a real french dynasty could have been created here. When i heard it was KK i was too astounded for rational thoughts. I was disappointed but knew KK would put the intent right in our team (win matches not hold on for a point at wigan, derby et al). I still feel the same about KK. I know he's got the ability to get us back into the top 6 playing decent football, and even top 4 given enough time and say 5 years. But i thought getting Deschamps in for a long 10 year period would offer huge stability and we'd have an advantage over Manure, Arsenal as they'll lose their managers within 3-5 years and there would have been a chance for an established manager at the toon to supersede one of them. Now though, with KK, we'll likely be replacing managers at the same time. Having said all that I'll take getting back into the top 6 with KK playing football i can enjoy.

They're only individualistic because they're a new team. This will change. I do however hate spurs with all my heart. I was nearly brought to tears trying to consider who i wanted to lose more, spurs or the sudetanland yesterday. However, i think spurs have a similar problem to what liverpool had in the middle of the park before they got mascherano. They have a deep-lying water carrier in the deschamps mould (modric) who can't tackle. An they have Jenas who gets up and down but also can't really track back well or get forward well. They need Jenas higher up the pitch to be at his best. Similar to old liverpool, they had alonso deep-lying playmaker who spread it well but couldn't really tackle/defend, and gerrard who could go up and down but to be at his best really needs to be higher up the pitch. If they get a mascherano type player, freeing modric to spray passes from higher up the pitch where he can threaten teams' defences better, they'll be fine. Also, Bentley is undoubted class

why is that curious? they're doing they're job ffs!! do you expect KK to sell the tickets and the burgers aswell? all clubs have scouts, we've got some pretty good ones at the minute by the looks of our three new signings yesterday. its extremely small minded to suggest that you could be 'stirring up trouble' by quoting kk. its been said countless times by people within the club that KK has final say on transfers, he's just got some people working with him to find good players, its a pretty sweet deal if you ask me, get a grip. Small minded? Get a grip? How am i being small-minded? The difference between what you say happens with a DF and what we seem to have here is that Keegan as the manager knows who the DF is going after, either by recommendation from the DF or instruction to the DF on who to bring in. It's completely different if the DF brings someone in and THEN informs Keegan who he's got. Which is what keegan said in that interview. Like you say, all clubs have scouts. I agree with having a big scouting team. They 'scout out' players and identify them to the manager PRIOR to any action being taken. No scout signs players without prior authorisation from the man who will have to manage that player. Yet Keegan suggests this isn't the case at the toon. In which case, i find this curious. N.B. i've responded to your post without making jibes at your personal character and using over-the-top suggestions which you have above. I'd like the same courtesy in return. Whether i get it or not says more about you than me. 'when dennis wise and tony jimenez told me they'd got this guy called spiderman i looked him up' so you take from that, that jonas was signed without kk's say so? over his head? despite ashley publicly stating that keegan has final say on transfers? despite keegan saying he's happy with the way they're all working together? is it not possible that by 'got' he meant 'scouted' rather than 'signed'? in recent days we've heard nothing but positivity and sense (imo) from the owner and manager, we then went to old trafford and put in a great performance, and whats more all the new lads looked great. why come out with this stuff man? do you work for the sun? and ultimately, even IF all the players are signed with out kk's say so, which is a ludicrous assumption imo, knowing the man as we do, he's happy, he's smiling, he's positive, the team are playing well, whats the problem? N.B. i didnt say anything about your personal character in general, i said it was small minded of you to assume you could be stirring up trouble. maybe you've gotten what you wanted, which is a reaction, but when i see our fans helping out the media in the attempts to mess with us, i cant help but react. Look, i'm not looking for a reaction. And of course i don't work for the sun. All employees of the American must support Manyoo or Liverpool (Villa don't count). I'm not saying all signings are made above keegan's head, just that it's 'curious'. WTF is wrong with saying that? I'm not saying it's good or bad, but merely curious. I'd like to know more about what's going on with recruitment, how it's run etc. Ashley also said in that interview that Dennis Wise' job was to bring in 6or7 youngsters per season. What keegan says about Jonas ostensibly contradicts this. Why not quote that at me? For any REAL fan of newcastle united, a debate about the actualities of our club is welcomed regardless of whether some c*** from the Sun or any other paper might pick up on it. Keegan cares not about the press, but the club and so do i. I love discussing my club. All aspects of what's going on at my club. Not everything but that which the press might use. They're resourceful enough to come up with their own rumours anyway (they often do). Again, please refrain from asking stupid questions of me which are obviously not going to be true. Can it be i'm just a die-hard newcastle fan that wants to debate the club i love? Let's leave it at that hmm Dr?

why is that curious? they're doing they're job ffs!! do you expect KK to sell the tickets and the burgers aswell? all clubs have scouts, we've got some pretty good ones at the minute by the looks of our three new signings yesterday. its extremely small minded to suggest that you could be 'stirring up trouble' by quoting kk. its been said countless times by people within the club that KK has final say on transfers, he's just got some people working with him to find good players, its a pretty sweet deal if you ask me, get a grip. Small minded? Get a grip? How am i being small-minded? The difference between what you say happens with a DF and what we seem to have here is that Keegan as the manager knows who the DF is going after, either by recommendation from the DF or instruction to the DF on who to bring in. It's completely different if the DF brings someone in and THEN informs Keegan who he's got. Which is what keegan said in that interview. Like you say, all clubs have scouts. I agree with having a big scouting team. They 'scout out' players and identify them to the manager PRIOR to any action being taken. No scout signs players without prior authorisation from the man who will have to manage that player. Yet Keegan suggests this isn't the case at the toon. In which case, i find this curious. N.B. i've responded to your post without making jibes at your personal character and using over-the-top suggestions which you have above. I'd like the same courtesy in return. Whether i get it or not says more about you than me.